


Green Frogs and Alabama Larkspur

by olliecoddle



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1920s, Alternate Universe - 1930s, American South AU, Eventual Romance, Genderqueer Grantaire, Grantaire-centric, Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Minor Character Death, depression era south, fairly insignificant age gap, fried green tomatoes - Freeform, what we in the biz like to call not realizing you're genderqueer in the 1930s
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-07
Updated: 2019-03-07
Packaged: 2019-11-13 04:04:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18024323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/olliecoddle/pseuds/olliecoddle
Summary: The evening that Aire's sister Joy was hit by a train was the first time he held hands with Julien Enjolras. The second time came nearly seven years later in the late quince summer of nineteen-thirty-two.When he saw him again he could see he was still so golden, but Grantaire couldn't help but be devastatingly disappointed by how boring he had become. If his mother thought it would be good for him to spend time with Julien Enjolras then he would just have to prove it was terrible for Julien Enjolras to have to spend time with him.a.k.a exr hijinx in the depression era south and all that entails





	Green Frogs and Alabama Larkspur

The evening that Aire’s sister Joy was hit by a train was the first day he held hands with Julien Enjolras. The second time came nearly seven years later in the late quince summer of nineteen-thirty-two. 

Joy was Aire’s best friend. There were four years between them, Aire was twelve and Joy was fresh sixteen, but Aire forgot that fact almost every day. He supposed Joy had wanted to make him feel like that, like she wasn’t too old. They always seemed to be going through just about the same things at just about the same time. When Joy finished a book it was just about time for Aire to start it. They would sit next to each other at the dinner table and knock heels every time their father swore. They would swim down at the river like two brow otters and get so ravenous they would eat the bitter dandelions that grew up in the dirt, swallowing the next putrid leaf in a silent dare to prove they could. They planted an apple tree there not knowing it would take more time than they had to bear fruit. 

Just once, Joy had painted Aire’s fingernails with her light pink lacquer. The two stayed up most of the night huddled quietly on Aire’s quilt. Joy had been busy at work, a bead of sweat making its way from her brown frizzled hairline down her forehead in the balmy summer air as her eyes strained in the low light. One twitch of her hand and her hard work would be ruined. Aire wouldn’t have minded, either way, just to have it on his nails was enough. When she was finished, the varnish was smooth and bright and perfect. Joy put a warm hand on his cheek and told him in mocking solemnity that if Aire fell asleep too soon and smeared the color all over his blankets that she would have no choice but to lock him in the cellar for three days. She retreated back to her bedroom there and left him there with only the pink on his nails and a small drop of polish staining his quilt to remember her visit. 

Next morning the two matched digits on their way to Gene Fitzgerald's wedding. When they held hands in the car Aire pretended that he couldn’t tell the difference between their fingers. _Grantaire remembered Joy wore a white calico dress covered in thumbprint yellow and red flowers._ Aire wore brown pants and a white dress shirt but his nails matched the light pink peonies that lined the church pews. He remembered himself reaching his hand up to compare the color, the lightest part of the petal an exact dupe for his nail. Aire had seen the moment that the vein on his father's neck popped clean out.  
At home after all the I-dos Rs father had hit him so hard on the back of the head with a copy of The Story of Doctor Dolittle that his dark shaggy curls could hardly hide the lump.

Joy said she regretted it. Aire said he didn’t. 

His father gave him a heavy file to scrape the polish off his fingers but Aire still had the dot on his quilt to remind him of how pretty it had looked. 

Joy was so lovely Aire should have suspected that sooner or later a boy would take an interest in her. The first time Julien Enjolras had come around and put his white wristed arm around Joy’s shoulder Aire had felt a white-hot pain in his chest. He had to keep breathing just to keep himself from running straight into Joy’s room and smashing everything he could fit in his fists on to smithereens. 

Soon, Aire discovered that such action was mostly unwarranted. Julien didn’t really mind him hanging around. When he brought Joy a rosette pin, he brought Aire one too. _Grantaire had lost it._ He and Julien both had the exact same type of curls only Aire could never keep them smooth like his. Julien seemed to know everything, and he seemed to see straight through Aire. Seemed like he understood him. Aire liked that, back then at least. _Back then he would have given anything to have someone be able to finish his sentences._ So, he liked Julien, and once he started liking Julien it was pretty hard to quit.

On that morning Joy and Aire had spent the first few hours of birdsong making buttermilk biscuits. The blueberries had just gone to fall so they were beginning to crack open their cans of preserves. Joy, Aire, And Julien went down to the river together, stopping by the bank and laying their food out on the grass. As the yellow sunlight dipped and painted shadows with an ink black brush Joy lay back, the weed between her teeth arching and bending, sweet red jam clinging to her softly painted upper lip. _Grantaire couldn’t now remember when she had put that on between when her hair was filled with white flour and when their feet made contact with the cobblestones behind their house._ Joy instructed Julien to move so he could block the sun from her eyes. His wavy blonde hair hung around his face like a halo, the sun making it evermore gold and when Joy looked at him like that Aired knew it was time for him to go down to the sandy bank to catch frogs. Even a chaste kiss on the cheek was too much for Aire’s childlike sensibilities. Besides, he much preferred the feel of a cool and wet frog under his hot hand, squirming and croaking to get free to being forgotten on a picnic blanket. When Aire was just a little kid Joy had put both her hands on his hand showed him just how hard to hold them. It was your responsibility as the catcher to make sure your catchee was nice and comfortable. She told him that if you held a frog real gentle it sometimes wouldn’t even realize it was caught. He used his forefinger to gently stroke the forehead of the squiggling green amphibian. God made every creature with an awful amount of care and consideration, even the slimy ones. Aire wondered what God had been thinking. God might as well have made him slimy.

They shook their crumbs out into the grass and Julien tucked the blanket back under his arm as they continued on their way. It was just a little way until they reached the old walking bridge. The bridge was rusty brown and it clanged when you stepped where it didn’t expect you to step. Aire liked to walk along the very edge. He insisted to Julien that he wouldn’t get very hurt if he fell but Julien insisted back that he needed to take his hand while he walked. Aire gave in but he only leaned farther over the edge now he had an anchor to angle himself on. The bridge was high and the tracks below were-

Joy lost her hat as they crossed. Her white ribbon was untied and the breeze was too strong. It billowed down and lay perfectly even between the two tracks. 

Julien offered to go down and get it. Joy laughed, calling him a pretty boy and kissing him on the cheek. Her eyes had flashed in the sun. _They were green like Grantaires._

Joy got the hat just fine. When her boot had first stuck in the tracks Aire had laughed, thinking about the wiggly frog. She laughed too, leaning down to untie it.

The whistle was loud and clear, but the brakes only seemed to screech right before it destroyed her, like at the very last moment it changed its mind. Aire could only hear his own screams. Only how could he remember Enjolras breaking his throat, pleading with her to move like his words would do anything.

_Grantaire didn’t really remember what happened to him after that except for that had been strangled by too many soft arms and when he had finally broken free he ran until he got back to the river._ He ran straight into the water and he sunk til it was all quiet, but Aire was still screaming. 

When he saw Julien at the funeral his hair was so different; it was cut short then, stringy, pushed back by a thousand panicked fingers, unclean. Aire ran from that too. He ran down to the river until the breeze brought winter winds that forced him to hike back home to the big blue house with the white trim that was so much bigger and bluer without Joy.

**Author's Note:**

> hope you enjoyed!  
> for all those concerned the exr centrism will pick up basically immediately in the next chapte  
> also if anyone who noticed I used fried green tomatoes as my jumping off point. though I refer back to plot-points and themes throughout they definitely can't be considered the same story, just some heavy fuckin inspo.  
> thanks so much for reading! feedback is always appreciated!  
> -ollie  
> p.s. I'm a poet and my prose is gratuitous flowery trash but I hope you enjoy!


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